


All Edges of a Koch Snowflake

by The_Magical_Crawdad



Category: Homestuck, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:12:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Magical_Crawdad/pseuds/The_Magical_Crawdad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is more to Pickle Inspector than Diamonds Droog could have expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Edges of a Koch Snowflake

“P-please don’t make me.”

So you made him.

And he shot you.

That was two days ago now.

This time, at least, you know exactly how far you can go before Inspector shoots you. You toe his line effortlessly and almost restlessly, because you are Diamonds Droog and there are few things, if any, that can make you stay your hand.

When he leaves, he gives you a brilliant smile, and a mumbled and rushed _thank you_ as he goes, right on the tail of Sleuth’s coat that the shorter man had _somehow_ managed to flare as he turned. You are quiet for the rest of the night, and not even Slick can rouse you from your thinking.

You think very methodically on what, exactly, had taken place. Two days ago he had shot you, yes, undoubtedly ruined a suit (no amount of tailoring can completely erase a bullet hole and even then _you would know_ ), and despite how these things usually make you feel you feel nothing except some measure of satisfaction. He had even apologised about the suit, but not the shooting, which revealed quite a lot. You know his apology was heart-felt, because Inspector is nothing if not honest. And that satisfied - satisfies - you.

If it were anyone, any _thing_ else, you think you might be troubled. No, not troubled, irritated. Except you are not.

In the morning, you check the suit - as much as you loathe the idea of ever wearing it again, simply disposing of it somehow feels wrong. You measure the distance from where you would have shot (fatal, of course, right through the heart because you believe in efficiency in all things) with your hands, and you hold it for a long time as you think his placement of the shot over. Nonfatal, of course, Inspector could never handle some one's life on his hands, but he had aimed in such a way to limit your ability to use the arm as much as he possibly could have.

You think about it when you meet him for tea. You watch him closely, trying to catch sight of the Inspector who’d shot you. You do not, which leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. It’s not quite disappointment and not quite anger, but somewhere between them. You excuse yourself early and leave with more questions than you’d started with.

The next time you and the rest of the Crew run into him and the rest of Team Sleuth while you’re ‘on the job’, so to speak, reveals quite a lot. It starts with a phone call, which is surprising in itself because you are currently busy trying to keep Quarters from introducing your person to roughly a hundred rounds of hot lead. The ringing phone itself interrupts the showdown, and both you and the green torso pause mid strife to stare at each other.

You, of course, are closer, and the impromptu peace holds as you pick up the receiver.

“A-ah, I do so hate to i-interrupt, but I w-would be delighted if you didn’t move.” His voice is calm, breathing even. He is almost completely dissimilar to your Inspector, but you mask your faint surprise behind unflappable cool. You don’t even flinch when Quarter's chest blooms crimson and the sound of a bullet casing being ejected over the line rings in your ear.

“Thank you.” You hear, and then the line goes dead.

Shortly after that, all hell breaks loose in the shape of Slick and Sleuth. As much as it pains you to admit, they work well together, but by your count more green torsos fall to Inspector’s rounds than their combined efforts. You don’t see him when you manage to get out of the green hell that is the Felt safe house. You’re not sure where he was to begin with, though you can make some educated guesses based on the trajectory of his shots. Even so, he must have changed location more than once.

You didn’t even know he could use a sniper rifle, let alone to that level of proficiency.

You’re coming to realize your assessment of Inspector was incorrect, and begin to adjust your view of the man.

You visit him often, of course. You’re beginning to catch glimpses of a different man, finally beginning to get the important pieces in the Inspector puzzle. And luckily for you, they’re the corner pieces. He drinks, a staggering amount, certainly more than you and you wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than Boxcars. You had erroneously assumed it was to calm his nerves, to provide himself a buffer against his worries, but you are absolutely certain it is for an entirely different reason. You just don’t know what that reason is.

Not having all the facts usually irks you. You are not completely surprised that you downright _enjoy_ teasing out any small shred of information from your conversations and interaction with Inspector.

You keep at it, tailing him when he’s on a job just to observe him. You’re very, _very_ good at not revealing your presence, but he picks up on it quickly. This time he’s managed to give you quite the run around, though you are not fooled by his distractions and diversions for very long. You open the door on him opening a long case carefully.

“The fruit cart was a nice touch. Where did you find one at such an hour?” You keep your calm and carefully close the door . He looks up briefly at your question, then holds up a finger as he fishes around in his coat for a small two-way radio. You remain silent as he turns it on, carefully fiddling with one of the dials until the static ceases.

“Setting the table now,” he murmurs into it, voice scrubbed clean of his usual verbal tics. “How many are we expecting?” It’s code, one you understand, but likely unnecessary. Not that it deters him, nor apparently Sleuth who responds quickly.

“Not sure yet.” You can hear the third portion of Team Sleuth muttering somewhere near Sleuth, too low for you to hear. Inspector simply sets the radio down and sets his hands to work on the plain case he’d carried in.

“We’ve got another on the staff today.” He looks up at you as he speaks and smiles, timidly, like the Inspector you know, and you realize he’s seeking forgiveness from revealing you. You simply nod, trusting his decision. If you revealed yourself at an inopportune time it may have been disastrous, after all, and you don’t want to be on the receiving end of another bullet.

“Oh?” If Sleuth was surprised, he didn’t show it. You can hear the sound of metal in the background, a sound you know intimately. Someone is loading a very large gun - likely Dick, as he’s the only third of Team Sleuth that has enough raw strength to lift something that large, let alone pull the trigger.

“Y-yes. A, mmm, professional. Sharp as diamonds.” He keeps his attention on his own weapon as he speaks, hands lacking their usual tremble.

“... Just make sure he knows the guest list.” And with that, Sleuth goes quiet, and Inspector lifts a hand to his lips. You cross the room and crouch by the window as he sets a bronze sextant on the ledge, sighting down it.

“Fourteenth Street Jokers.” You know them. Minor shakers, hardly movers. Bootlegging, prostitution, usually limited to the few streets that make up their territory. _Used_ to be part of Kingpin’s syndicate, before Team Sleuth brought him crashing to the ground. You’re surprised they lasted this long. “They’ve been doing, ah, a lot of moving around. Sleuth managed to find them connected to a murder he was working on.” This is the smoothest you’ve ever heard him speak, and he barely even trembles as he begins adjusting his sight, and this is most likely from the perpetual chill that plagues him.

“There is a spyglass in the case. If you would be so kind..?” A second pair of eyes would certainly not go amiss, and you find yourself pulling the battered spyglass from the case without objection. You’re not surprised to find it masquerades as a pair of high quality binoculars in its off time, and you stare down at the construction yard intently.

“Why the firepower?”

“They did not take kindly to inquiries the first time.” The fire on Fifth makes a lot of sense, now.

“Lets cut the chit chat, gentlemen. It’s time to open the doors on this little get together.” You see why Sleuth calls the shots. Confidence and professionalism radiate from his voice, and it pains you to know that he’s likely striking a suitably hardboiled pose. You can see a look of suffering pass across Inspector’s face and know he’s thinking the same.

Then it’s all business, from Inspector’s grip on the smooth metal of his sextant to the smooth, even breathing coming from the small radio beside him. There is a heavy tension, something you feel at the base of your skull, which is abruptly snapped when you hear the first gunshot. Almost immediately Inspector squeezes the trigger, controlled and fluid, not at all like the quick jerk of a finger that you had expected from him. You watch the heavy man who’d just signalled the start of the combat go down to a shot in the upper thigh. You are mildly surprised at the caliber of rounds Inspector is using, which you instantly disregard as you hear the cold snap of a casing being spat out of the gun to your right.

Inspector’s breathing does not change at all as you spot for him, even and calm under your crisp directions. Your position is perfect for this kind of work, and very few areas of the cluttered construction yard below you hold any dead spots. Inspector shoots only to wound, not kill, which is exactly what you expected, but every shot unerringly finds its mark and each round debilitates.

He fires again on your mark, and you hear the empty cartridge discharge with a clatter. Out of the corner of your eye you see him slam a fresh one up into his rifle in one fluid shift of his arm, a study of economy of motion, and he’s sighting down his barrel in half a second. He fires before you turn your attention back to the yard, and when you do you see a small man go down to a shot through the shoulder. The man had been barely ten feet from Dick, who is crouched behind a pile of long boards reloading a shotgun.

The situation is quickly going south. You can barely keep track of the men pouring into the yard, and instead have to switch to the men closest to Sleuth and Dick. You lose track of how many times Inspector needs to reload, and it’s during the split second of sniper silence for a man to get close enough to Sleuth to fire.

You hear the mans hiss of surprise and see him drop, and then the man who had just shot him collapse in a fountain of blood. A head shot - _Inspector’s_ work. You glance over to him and see the grim set of his lips. He’s angry, no, _furious_ , it radiates off him as he squeezes the trigger again and again. His pupils are pinpoints, nostrils pinched, but still his breathing is even. His stance is responsive, not irrational. His movements are quick, but sure. He has the next cartridge ready even as he fires his final round. There is no pause between them.

The gun in his hands spits death, and Inspector is the reaper himself, face gaunt and bone white in fury. It takes all your self control not to ram him against the wall then and there, Sleuth and Dick be damned. You clench your teeth and force your attention back to the killing floor.

He can shoot around corners.

You take a sharp breath.

Every shot he takes rocks you. He is not afraid to kill, this much has been proven. It takes what he sees as a direct threat to something he treasures to strip away his usual ideology, but even a crow can kill a lion if it has cause enough.

You drive Sleuth to the nearest hospital in a freshly stolen car, but only because Inspector refuses to leave his side. Ace Dick had thankfully stayed behind to assist the police who had been called in while you convinced Inspector it would be easier to provide them statements _later_. He is all nerves and worry again, wringing his hands and biting his nails by turns. Sleuth tries to calm him down, but Inspector his having none of it and continues to mumble to himself in the back seat.

You don’t bother trying. Your solution to his current state isn’t exactly a public thing, after all.

Later, after many hours and a set of ruined sheets (there is a reason he keeps a guest room) he stares at you and through you, limbs heavy with exhaustion and gaze blurry with more than just alcohol.

“I killed people today.” He informs you, like it’s something you didn’t already know about, something you needed to know. He is asleep before you can think to ask him about it.

In the morning he excuses himself to check on Sleuth before giving his statement to the police, and he gives you free run of his abode as he steps out the door. That is not completely surprising, Inspector is too trusting by half. That is not completely the reason, which is a long string of he-knows-you-know. You are methodical by nature, and leaving you alone is synonymous with giving Slick the key to the liquor cabinet.

Inspector has one of those, actually. It makes you smile briefly, in a dispassionate sort of way.

The advantage is a false one, however. You know well enough by now that there is very little you would find here that would indicate anything other than what you already know. You leave him a carefully ambiguous note and lock the house behind you as you leave.

You go to his office instead, letting yourself in with the key he keeps in the masterfully hidden compartment inside the door frame. His office is excruciatingly neat, completely at odds with his habits. One entire wall is dominated by a huge cloth-wrapped board. A careful press of a finger confirms your expectation. Cork, hard pressed. No wonder the pins don’t shift.

Files and photos bloom on the wall like a fractal web of information. Various groupings are divided further, different colours of wool indicating the nature of each connection. Each web of files is linked into the bigger web, which spirals into the center around a photo of the Kingpin himself. Notes are tacked everywhere, delivery routes and small instructions to look in other files. Gang relations, _everything_.

It takes you a while to discover the method of each connection. Closed cases are linked to Kingpin in black, ongoing in red, and undefined in yellow. Too many of them are red, but each major grouping has a handful of closed cases inside them. So not every connection is solid enough to have a definite case but solid enough for Inspector to put it up on the wall. You know that he wouldn’t have done so if he wasn’t absolutely certain.

You think it must have been the cigarette smoke that lead Sleuth into the office. Inspector doesn’t smoke, after all, and lighting one wasn’t the smartest thing you could have done. Habit brings all men low. He just looks at you, though, shifting his arm. Obviously not used to the pull of his sling.

“We’re still working on it,” he says as he waves at the wall with his good hand. You don’t relax, exactly, but shift gears . You don’t expect an attack but you’re not unprepared for it. You keep watch on him out of the corner of your eye as you turn back to the web of intrigue. “Say, you wouldn’t mind helping a couple a detectives make some leads?” His question is only half hearted; something he expected of himself but seriously did not expect anything of you.

“An upstanding citizen of the law would know nothing of the workings of evil men,” you reply. He catches your drift, and grins, shrugging. You smile faintly in a humourless way when he winces as his shoulder pulls. He leaves you alone after that, knowing there’s little he could do to remove you from Inspector’s office. You leave not long after, replacing the key to its hidden location. The seam is so fine, runs so true with the grain of the wood, that you would have trouble finding it if you did not already know where it is. Ingenious.

You spend the next week planning a rather complicated heist (are they ever not when working with Slick), but it does not consume you. You put in the required amount of effort for the plan to work correctly and properly, and spend the rest of your time thinking. It has been a long time since something has been able to occupy your attention so fully, and the satisfaction you get from slotting one piece of information in by the next is immense.

Inspector does not have the same force of personality that Sleuth does, nor does he possess the almost ignorant surety of Dick. He has facts, and control. He is layered in thought and intent, and every action he takes has been scrutinised in the vault of his impressive imagination and intellect from all angles before he even considers it. He prefers not to kill, but he will when it’s required, and you know his definition of ‘when it’s required’ is unflinchingly maintained.The jigsaw that is Pickle Inspector is larger than you thought, and your corner pieces only do so much. He never lies, even when it would be his best interest to do so.

He’s never had to. You just never asked the right questions.

You will continue not asking the right questions until you know enough to ask the right ones. The thought fills you with anticipation, a cold surge of frigid satisfaction that renews every time you see him. There is more to learn about Inspector than you could have previously thought.

You now understand why he enjoys puzzles so much.

**Author's Note:**

> The title refers to a fractal known as a Koch Snowflake [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake]. It is really only tangentially related to the work, but I like it anyway, and it implies that Droog trying to know and understand absolutely everything about Inspector is like trying to find every edge on a Koch Snowflake.
> 
> What I am saying may or may not make sense, oops.


End file.
